In a multi-hop wireless mesh network, throughput decreases approximately between linearly and exponentially with an increase in hop count, due to interference generated by neighboring mesh Access Points (MAPs) on the same channel. The end-to-end throughput available to each node in the same network can be represented by
      O    ⁡          (              1                  n                    )        ,where n is the number of nodes in the network. Further, due to contention from subsequent forwarding nodes, the end-to-end throughput that a daisy-chained network can achieve is approximately 1/7 of the available capacity.
Unlike cellular networks or Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs), wireless mesh networks have unique characteristics, such as self-healing, self-forming, multi-hop forwarding, and traffic aggregation at every downstream Access Point (AP). Existing solutions often assume a flat mesh topology and assign channels dynamically in a distributed fashion over a short period of time, incurring large channel switching overhead and high complexity. Some vendors have multi-radio and multi-channel backhaul products; however, a static channel assignment algorithm is often utilized, where channels are determined when the network is setup and manually configured at each mesh AP.